


rat trap

by TechnicalTragedy



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canonical Character Death, Gen, M/M, almost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 14:28:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10362489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TechnicalTragedy/pseuds/TechnicalTragedy
Summary: The words are bad news. He is bad news.





	

**Author's Note:**

> or, reverse soulmate au where the words belong to the person who will kill you. fun!

_You have a family, if you want it._

Percy's seven when he wakes up with the words on his arm, and he knows what it means, even as young as he is.

His mother and father get these infinitely sad looks on their faces when he shows them his inked arm. Percy can feel his face burning, utterly ashamed at being marked, at being a disappointment to his parents. It wasn't like he was going to rule anyway, but he's sure they would've liked to keep him as long as they could. Johanna holds him close and presses kisses into his hair.

Percy folds his arm to his chest between them, squeezing his eyes shut and hoping fervently that maybe if he doesn't look, the word will go away. The words are bad news. He is bad news.

 

 

As he grows, Percy learns to hide it. Long sleeves work well enough for the icy Whitestone climate, but he covers his forearm with a thin leather bracer under his sleeve. Just in case something happens.

Something does happen, but it isn't at all what he expects.

The Briarwoods kill Percy's family when he's seventeen. He remembers running, Cass falling, more running. The fishing vessel he wakes up on becomes a quasi-home, and no one onboard asks questions about him or his covered arm.

All Percy can think about for months is that no de Rolo except himself had words.

 

 

When Orthax offers Percy power, he figures why not? He's doomed either way. The words burn under his bracer when he accepts the deal.

 

 

When you've got words, you're going to die.

Sure, everybody dies eventually anyway, but the words mean you'll die early, violently, tragically. As legend states, whoever speaks those words to you will be the one to kill you.

Percy repeats that to himself while he rots in Anna Ripley's prison. She's never said the words to him.

When Vox Machina saves him, he's glad he was right.

 

 

The way Percy sees it, he's virtually immortal until he meets the person who'll speak those words to him. So he tags along with the band of adventurers who come to be known as Vox Machina, and they defeat evil where they're contracted to find it.

It's fun, in a way. Gruesome and tiring yes, but fun in a morbid sense.

Morbidity has been Percy's specialty since he was seven and learned he was going to be killed.

 

 

Their adventures leading up to the Underdark in no way prepare Percy for the unrelenting black of the subterranean hellscape. There's no light, both physically and metaphorically, and down in that hole of a place is the first time he wishes he wasn't part of Vox Machina.

But Vax kisses him, and that's a light.

 _Oh_ , Percy thinks, and it makes sense.

 

 

Infatuated is a hard thing to be. Percy keeps it under wraps just like his words. The last thing he wants is to ruin what their unit has by confessing his love for his groupmate.

It gets easier, the longer he works at it.

But then the Briarwoods are back, and Percy's words pulse against his flesh like the shadow from his dream is whispering to him again. His List burns in his hand, and he's certain he won't die to the Briarwoods. The last thing they would do is offer him a place.

 

 

"You're in love with him," Keyleth says underneath the Sun Tree, her perceptive eyes locked onto Percy.

He doesn't even pretend to be ignorant of what she's speaking about. It's pointless to try and lie when she has him figured out. "I'm not," he says.

She raises a disbelieving eyebrow. "It's okay, you know. I think he likes you, too."

Percy huffs and turns away, not wanting her meaningless platitudes. He can sometimes convince himself of that, too, but it's unfair to Vax for Percy to project his feelings onto him. He knows he's just a friend, and he's made peace with it.

Besides, he doesn't have time to think about that when he's so close to the Briarwoods.

 

 

Seeing Cass again is a pleasant surprise. Percy is overjoyed to have some remnant of his family, someone who knows about the secret weighing his arm down.

She corners him. "Is it one of them?"

And Percy had never thought of that before, genius that he is.

 

 

Because Vox Machina can't have even a month of respite, the Chroma Conclave attacks Emon. Percy is unafraid in the face of the dragons, his words a shield against them. But he watches the citizens of Emon turn to ash and wonders if maybe he should be a little bit scared. He wonders if maybe the words will be spoken in a different language, at an infeasible time.

Percy looks over to Vax, bloodied and eyes wide, gripping his dagger in white-knuckled hands.

"It will be alright, won't it?" Percy says.

Vax cuts a glance at him. "It's all fucked, I'm afraid," he says.

Somehow, it's a comfort.

 

 

Percy stares out into the trees on his watch. He looks to Vax every so often, rehashing the achingly familiar lines of his face. Thrown into sharp contrast by the firelight, he looks almost new and alien, some lifeform Percy is unfamiliar with. He feels like maybe he's been out of touch with Vax since they got to Whitestone.

Vax smiles over at him, tight and strained, and Percy almost flushes at having been caught staring.

They talk.

"I believe you are a good man, if you listen to your better angels, and they're within your friends," Vax says.

Percy parts his lips to say something, he doesn't recall what.

But then Vax says, "You have a family, if you want it," and the world shatters around Percy.

His ears are ringing. His words itch under the bracer. His mouth goes dry.

 _Of course_ , he thinks, _who else?_

 

 

And Vex dies, the hunt for the Vestiges continues, Vox Machina falls and rises and warps like nebulous entities.

Percy never takes off the bracer anymore, not even for a split second.

Ripley shoots holes in Percy, ripping through his lungs, his guts, his meat and sinew. He remembers the world shifting as he fell back, and his last thought was that she shouldn't be able to kill him. That job belongs to Vax and Vax alone.

But she does kill him, even if he comes back.

Later, Raishan kills him as well. He wonders if maybe the words are wrong, but in his heart knows his life and last death both are Vax's.

 

And Scanlan leaves.

And Vax fumes and Keyleth questions.

"We're worse than friends," Percy answers. "We're family."

The words under the bracer are an itch that can't be scratched.

**Author's Note:**

> on tumblr [@aramente](http://aramente.tumblr.com) n im too tired to put something clever here


End file.
